Everything Everywhere to introduce mobile payments

Everything Everywhere, also known as Orange and T-Mobile, is planning to roll out a mobile payment scheme later in the year, in partnership with Barclaycard.

As the BBC reports, you’ll be able to pop into a Little Chef and pay for your Olympic breakfast simply by using your mobile phone, as many people already do over in Japan.

The technology used to achieve this is NFC or Near Field Communications, which is already supported by handsets such as Google’s latest darling, the Nexus S. The next iPhone is also thought to be ready to carry NFC.

NFC means customers will be able to swipe their mobile to pay for something, effectively replacing their credit card with their sim card.

The Beeb notes that businesses which have the necessary “contactless technology” include the likes of Little Chef, Pret a Manger, and the National Trust. More services are expected to roll out, particularly in London on the run up to the Olympics, such as Transport for London using NFC payments.

Eventually, you really will be able to pay for everything, everywhere, in all likelihood. Although currently, contactless payments can only be used for transactions of less than £15 (and multiple transactions in a short space of time may require a PIN, as a security measure).

Jason Rees, Head of m-payments at Everything Everywhere, told the BBC: “Studies show that people are more likely to forget their wallets than their mobile phones. Trials have proved that customers love it, they love the simplicity of having their wallet all in one place and it means there is no more need to carry cash.”

Comments in chronological order (2 comments)

I find this slightly strange, pay by mobile, without a pin can only mean more phones stolen for cash. I’d imagine there must be a way of canceling the cash facility on the phone, but once stolen how can you ring to cancel? , will there be a cash limit on these phones?